Tag: Trump attempt to steal a second term

Michael Flynn Boasts Maybe He’ll ‘Find Somebody In Washington’ With His New AR-15

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Michael Flynn Boasts Maybe He’ll ‘Find Somebody In Washington’ With His New AR-15

Disgraced Trump administration figure Michael Flynn boasted on Sunday that maybe he’ll “find somebody” in Washington with a new assault-style rifle given to him at California church.

Flynn, the former national security adviser pardoned by Donald Trump for lying about his Russia contacts, made the jaw-dropping remark after he was gifted the gun at the “Church of Glad Tidings” in Yuba City, California. Church members roared with laughter and clapped when Flynn suggested hunting humans in the nation’s capital.

“We were trying to come up with a rifle that we thought was appropriate for a general, so we went with an old-school Woodland camouflage … one of our top-quality guns,” said Jason Parker, who works for a gun company. The weapon he presented to Flynn appeared to be a Woodland Camo AR-15. Continue reading.

Trump whines for over 100 minutes at Arizona grievance festival — here are the 7 most absurd moments

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Donald Trump spoke for over 100 minutes during a long-winded speech at a “Rally to Protect Our Elections” in Phoenix.

Much of Trump’s speech was focused on repeating his debunked lies that he won the 2020 presidential election, when in reality he was defeated by Joe Biden.

But he also found time to bash much of America while praising the local extremists behind Arizona’s audit of the vote in Maricopa County and listing his many perceived grievances. Continue reading.

‘Some are still suffering’: Months after Capitol riot, police who fought the mob contend with physical, psychological pain

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More than six months after Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell battled the mob that stormed the Capitol, he remains hobbled, a hand scarred, a shoulder aching, recovering from surgery to an injured foot that swelled so large it no longer fit his shoe.

The 42-year-old Capitol Police officer and Army reservist is also seeing a therapist to help with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), first diagnosed after he served in the war in Iraq.

He said bouts of anxiety returned after his battle on American soil in the Jan. 6 riot. Continue reading.

Commentary: Inside observers say the Arizona ‘auditors’ are backtracking — and the reality only supports Biden’s win

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The “big lie” that President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected is not going away. One reason is Americans who care about their democracy are not learning how votes for president in 2020 were counted and verified — neither from the big lie’s promoters nor from most of its fact-driven critics.

Most visibly, the absence of a clear and accurate explanation can be found among former President Donald Trump’s ardent supporters. As seen in a July 15 briefing in Arizona’s legislature, the contractors hired by the state Senate to assess the 2020 election’s results unleashed a new thicket of finger-pointing and innuendo that fans doubts about Maricopa County’s election administration and votes for Biden.

Critics of the big lie, who range from state officials (including Republicans) to voting rights advocates — and, of course, Democrats— have mostly emphasized that the Arizona Senate’s inquiry and copycat efforts in other states are bad faith exercises led by Trump supporters who lack election auditing experience. Continue reading.

Republicans kick Arizona audit ‘director’ out of the building as GOP chaos escalates: report

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Republicans once referred to Ken Bennett as the “director” of their widely-panned audit of votes in Maricopa County, but he has reportedly lost his privileges to even enter the building where the fiasco is taking place.

Bennett, who served as Arizona’s Secretary of State and president of the state Senate, was the one person associated with the recount with experience in elections. He was officially listed as the liaison to the state Senate, which paid $150,000 of the $9 million the audit is reportedly costing.

“Questions are mounting about who is in control of the long-running partisan review of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results — the Arizona Senate, which ordered it, or the outside firms that are running it,” The Arizona Republic reported Friday evening. “On Friday, Ken Bennett, the Senate liaison to the audit, was not allowed into the building at the state fairgrounds where the audit is taking place, a day after he shared data with outside critics from an ongoing ballot count.” Continue reading.

Dating app trips up another Capitol riot suspect, one accused of hitting police with whip

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The phrase “all is fair in love and war” took on a new meaning Friday, when a Texas man was arrested after boasting to a match in a dating app about participating in the Jan. 6 riot “from the very beginning.”

Andrew Taake of Houston was charged with assaulting police and storming the Capitol building. His arrest follows a months-long investigation spurred by a tip and a FedEx delivery driver who confirmed his identity to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Taake made his initial court appearance Friday in the Southern District of Texas, according to a Department of Justice news release. His public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Continue reading.

Suspect Tries to Compare Capitol Riot to Last Year’s Violence in Portland, Ore.

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Right-wing news media and Republican politicians have often made the comparison. Now, in a narrow legal context, a judge will consider the argument.

The comparison has become a staple among right-wing figures in the news media and Republican politicians: The attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 was really no different than the unrest last year that accompanied months of racial justice protests. Any discussion of the first should — out of fairness, they have said — make reference to the second.

Now, for the first time, a federal court is poised to consider the merits of that argument, albeit in a narrow legal context.

The move comes in the case of Garret Miller, a Dallas man charged with storming the Capitol and facing off with officers inside. Last month, Mr. Miller, 34, raised what is known as a selective prosecution defense, claiming that he had been charged with violent crimes because of his conservative beliefs while dozens of leftist activists in Portland, Ore., had similar charges stemming from last year’s violence reduced or dismissed. Continue reading.

Trump wants to punish GOP critic — but he’s having trouble finding someone who can actually do it

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Donald Trump is laser focused on punishing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) in a Republican primary race.

The ex-president’s advisers have been pressing potential challengers on their ability to raise money and the strength of their campaign organizations, hoping to find a single candidate to take down Cheney, reported Politico.

“Trump’s analysis is correct that we need to get it down to a two-person race, and at that point, the challenger is likely to win, based on the polling we’ve done,” said David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth. Continue reading.

Trump Expected His SCOTUS Picks to ‘Deliver’ on Election and ‘Disappointed’ They Didn’t: Report

Former President Donald Trump is disappointed with Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett for not standing by him over his charges of election fraud.

This is according to Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig, who revealed this bit of reporting during a Friday morning appearance on CNN’s New Day in promotion of I Alone Can Fix This, the Trump tell-all she co-wrote with Philip Rucker.

John Avlon brought up a recent CNN report that showed the Trump Department of Justices allegedly buried over 4,000 tips it received during the contentious nomination of Kavanaugh amid charges of sexual misconduct. Continue reading.

Pennsylvania decertifies county voting system following private company audit promoted by pro-Trump state senators

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Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state has decertified a county’s voting system for future elections after it was subjected to a review by a private company in an effort promoted by a group of state senators supporting former president Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Acting secretary of state Veronica W. Degraffenreid said in a statement Wednesday that Wake TSI’s examination of the Fulton County ballots earlier this year violated the state’s election code.

Pennsylvania is the second state where officials have decertified election equipment because of questionable audits requested by Republicans. Arizona’s Maricopa County said in June that it will replace voting equipment that was turned over to a private contractor for a Republican-commissioned review of the 2020 election. Continue reading.